Acts 7:59

O martyr, embark on struggles which will cause happy deaths, where punishment is glory and to fall is a rising, and by slaughter is born immortality embracing the rewards of everlasting life. Lo, to have merited thus to die was the beginning of a blessed …

"And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." This is meant to show them that he is not perishing, and to teach them.

Therefore it is shown that the souls of the righteous no longer depart into Hades, as formerly, but are rather sent into the hands of the living God through our Savior Christ. [SAINT CYRIL ON "FATHER, INTO YOUR HANDS I COMMEND MY SPIRIT."]

"Lord Jesus, receive my spirit" is a saying that teaches and shows them that he will not perish. "They were stoning Stephen." Since justification is accomplished by faith in Christ, and in Him human nature received innocence in abundance and granted us a new right, …

And they stoned Stephen, invoking and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit - This is the literal translation of the words, the name of God not being in the original. Nevertheless such a solemn prayer to Christ, in which a departing soul is thus committed into his hands, is such an act of worship, as no good man could have paid to a mere creature;

1 Then said the high priest, Are these things so? 2 And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran, 3 And said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall show thee.

quarantine:scripture (2026-07-29) — scripture-overlap:98%@v1-3

And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God,....

Christ being the Person directly invoked and addressed by name (compare Ac 9:14). Even GROTIUS, DE WETTE, MEYER, &c., admit this, adding several other examples of direct prayer to Christ; and PLINY, in his well-known letter to the Emperor Trajan (A.D. 110 or 111), says it was part of the regular Christian service to sing, in alternate strains, a hymn to Christ as God.

IT is of the greatest service to us all to be reminded that our life is but a vapor which appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Through forgetfulness of this, worldlings live at ease and Christians walk carelessly. Unless we watch for the Lord's coming, worldliness soon eats into our spirit as does a canker. If you have this world's riches, Believer, remember that this is not your rest—set not too great a store by its comforts.

IT is of the greatest service to us all to be reminded that our life is but a vapor which appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Through forgetfulness of this, worldlings live at ease and Christians walk carelessly. Unless we watch for the Lord's coming, worldliness soon eats into our spirit as does a canker. If you have this world's riches, Believer, remember that this is not your rest—set not too great a store by its comforts. If, on the other hand, you dwell in straitness and are burdened with poverty, be not too much depressed, for these light afflictions are but for a moment and are not worthy to be compared with the Glory which shall be revealed in us! Look upon the things that are as though they were not. Remember you are a part of a great procession which is always moving by—others come and go before your own eyes—you see them and they disappear. You, yourself, are moving onward to another and more real world. "'Tis greatly wise to talk of our last hours," to give a rehearsal of our departure and to be prepared to stand before the great tribunal of the judgment. Our duty is to trim our lamps against the time when the Bridegroom comes. We are called upon to stand always ready, waiting for the appearing of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, or else for the summons which shall tell us that the pitcher is broken at the fountain and the wheel broken at the cistern—that the body must return to the earth as it was and the spirit unto God who gave it. This death scene of Stephen's may aid our meditations while, by the help of the Holy Spirit, we cast our minds forward to the time when we, also, must fall asleep.

And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God - The word God is not found in any MS. or version, nor in any of the primitive fathers except Chrysostom. It is not genuine, and should not be inserted here: the whole sentence literally reads thus: And they stoned Stephen, invoking and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit! Here is a most manifest proof that prayer is offered to Jesus Christ; and that in the most solemn circumstances in which it could be offered, viz., when a man was breathing his last. This is, properly speaking, one of the highest acts of worship which can be offered to God; and, if Stephen had not conceived Jesus Christ to be God, could he have committed his soul into his hands? We may farther observe that this place affords a full proof of the immateriality of the soul; for he could not have commended his spirit to Christ, had he believed that he had no spirit, or, in other words, that his body and soul were one and the same thing. Allowing this most eminent saint to have had a correct notion of theology, and that, being full of the Holy Ghost, as he was at this time, he could make no mistake in matters of such vast weight and importance, then these two points are satisfactorily stated in this verse: 1. That Jesus Christ is God; for Stephen died praying to him. 2. That the soul is immaterial; for Stephen, in dying, commends his departing spirit into the hand of Christ.